


Memories of a Marauder

by unknowableroom_archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Marauders' Era, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-11-06
Updated: 2005-11-06
Packaged: 2019-01-19 21:01:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12418080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unknowableroom_archivist/pseuds/unknowableroom_archivist
Summary: A delve into the mind of Professor Remus Lupin after he confiscated a certain piece of parchment from a student, a piece of parchment that carries with it deep memories from the past.





	Memories of a Marauder

**Author's Note:**

> Note from ChristyCorr, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Unknowable Room](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Unknowable_Room), a Harry Potter archive active from 2005-2016. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project after May 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Unknowable Room collection profile](http://www.archiveofourown.org/collections/unknowableroom).

**A Marauder’s Memories**

 

**A/N:** This piece was inspired by [Tinaling's HP fanart](http://www.tinaling.ca/mwppmap/), which is fantastic beyond description! Her drawing of Remus in “Old Memories”� gave me the idea to write this.

 

**Disclaimer:** I don’t own _Harry Potter_ or any associated characters, plot, scenarios, or ANYTHING to do with the series!

 

I think I’m in shock.

 

My brain is just on automatic mode, my feet hastily shuffling to my office, my hands opening the door, closing it, locking it.

 

It’s in my right pocket. Just take it out. It’s just a piece of parchment.

 

Right. Just a piece of parchment, my tail.

 

Breathe. In, out. In, out.

 

Gently, now.

 

Blimey, I can’t believe this.

 

Are my hands shaking?

 

I simply cannot believe this. I refuse to believe it. There are too many memories that go with this. And I don’t want to remember. Not here, not now.

 

...Do I?

 

This, this parchment I hold in my hands, right now.

 

How in the name of Merlin did Harry get this?

 

I gently place the old parchment down on my desk and unroll it carefully. With my right hand, I grip my wand and hold it inches above the parchment. It’s shaking like a leaf in the winter wind.

 

Should I?

 

I glance at my office door, ensuring that I am alone, all safe and locked in.

 

“I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.”�

 

I hear those timeless words come out of my mouth as I tap the parchment in a hoarse whisper that doesn’t sound like my own.

 

_Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers are proud to present_ The Marauder’s Map.

 

Oh, dear Merlin.

 

Memories, welcome or not, I wasn’t quite sure, swamp my brain, pulling me out of my candlelit office. I’m suddenly a fourth-year again, skimming the pages of my favorite book in the boys’ dormitories. It’s the first time James and Sirius discovered a secret passage, being the brilliant yet troublemaking minds they were.

 

_“How’d you find it?”� Peter asked eagerly._

__

_“We just sort of…stumbled upon it,”� James shrugged. “We were trying to get away from Filch.”�_

__

_I raised an eyebrow. “What’d you two do this time?”�_

__

_“That’s just it!”� he exclaimed. “We didn’t even do anything! Filch would just come up with something so that he could give us detention. That man holds the biggest grudges.”�_

__

_“You can’t blame him,”� Sirius grinned, as if being on Filch’s hit list was something to be exceedingly proud of. “You know,”� he mused, twirling his wand in his fingers absently. “If we found one secret passage to Hogsmeade, there must be more to other places! This is Hogwarts, after all.”�_

__

_“What are you going to do? Discover them all and write them all down?”� I muttered. Little did I know what idea would explode in their brains from my little comment._

__

_Two pairs of eyes lit up simultaneously. I groaned silently, a bit freaked out. Sirius and James were so alike sometimes that it scared me. They were like one mind split into two people._

__

_“That’s brilliant, Remus!”� James exclaimed, leaping up from his seat. Then a frown came over his face, and his eyebrows furrowed into his glasses. “But not like a list of secret passages…we need something better.”�_

__

_“No, not a list,”� Sirius agreed, nodding._

__

_“How about…a map?”� I suggested, not believing that the words had just spilled out of my mouth. I knew better than to egg them on. But the pair was really quite entertaining when they got an idea. I’ll just say it’s part of my duty as a friend to support them. That’s it._

__

_“Yeah! A map!”�_

__

_“A map of Hogwarts?”� Peter asked, confusion scribbled all over his round face._

__

_“And all its passages!”� Sirius exclaimed enthusiastically, his excitement mounting. The look on his face matched the one of a seven-year-old who had gotten a new broomstick for Christmas._

__

_“For future troublemakers, as our everlasting mark at Hogwarts,”� James added, a spark igniting in his hazel eyes._

__

_“Oh, what a great legacy,”� I rolled my own._

__

_“I know!”� agreed Sirius, who, as usual, didn’t quite catch onto the sarcasm._

 

I feel a faint smile flit across my face, remembering how easily Sirius had charmed the parchment to reveal itself at the proper words. He had always been good at Charms. He had been brilliant in _every_ subject.

 

_“What are you doing?”� I asked, plopping down on an armchair next to Sirius._

__

_“Trying to figure out the exact charm I need for the activation,”� he replied, not stopping his poring over a thick Charms textbook. “I think it’s somewhere on this page…”� He continued to peruse the text, muttering to himself._

__

_I couldn’t help but chuckle. “You seem to be so much more intent on studying when you’re not doing actual homework.”�_

__

_“Well, this is actually important!”� he grinned._

 

And Peter, who had always had a latent talent for calligraphy, had expertly created the flourishing welcoming message.

 

_“What should it say?”� he asked, doodling along the edges of a scratch piece of parchment._

__

_“Well, at least some information about what it does,”� I replied. “Whoever is using the map already activated it, so to speak.”�_

__

_“Should we just put our names on it?”� James offered. “After all, we should get credit.”�_

__

_“But what if we get caught?”� Peter squeaked._

__

_James rolled his eyes. “Peter, do we EVER get caught?”�_

__

_I coughed excessively in reply, to which the lanky Quidditch Chaser rolled his eyes again. If he kept that up, 10 Knuts that his eyes were going to roll right out of their sockets._

__

_“We shouldn’t put our actual names on it, though,”� Sirius agreed. A pause. Then, a light bulb lit up in his head; I could see it in the way his eyes glimmered. “But…we could always put our aliases.”�_

__

_I raised an eyebrow. “You mean…”� I trailed off, glancing at some nearby second-years._

__

_“Of course!”� James exclaimed. “It’s perfect! No one else knows what it’ll mean.”� He lowered his voice to a whisper. “We shall just be Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs!”�_

__

_“Oh, Merlin,”� I said, shaking my head tiredly. “Are we really going to carry through with this…whatever we’re making?”� I waved a hand towards the already charmed parchment._

__

_“Blimey, you’re right! We’ll need a name for this map!”� Sirius cried. I couldn’t help but laugh. Sirius would never live up to the pun that was his name._

__

_“Well, that’s easy,”� James said smoothly. “It’ll be called the Marauder’s Map.”�_

__

_We sat for a moment in silent pondering._

__

_“Marauder’s as in apostrophe ‘S’ or ‘S’ apostrophe?”� I asked._

__

_“What?”� Peter asked, the familiar expression of perplexity coming onto his face._

__

_“Well, it’s our map, so shouldn’t it be ‘S’ apostrophe?”� Sirius pondered._

__

_“No, I was thinking apostrophe ‘S,’ because although it_ is _our map because we created it, it technically belongs to the map-holding troublemaker.”� A triumphant glint sparked in James’s eyes at the thought of helping a future Hogwarts student sneak off in secret passages._

__

_“Yeah,”� Peter said, just for the sake of saying something. “Okay, so it’s Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs…”� he muttered, scribbling practice flourishes on the scratch parchment._

__

I remember wandering aimlessly around the castle, only vaguely focused on finding a secret passage. Because you can’t just go around looking for things like secret passageways. You just stumble across them, as James and Sirius had.

 

I remember looking up complicated charms to carry through the idea of having dots on the map, labeled as people as they moved around the castle. This was originally Sirius’s idea to get away from Filch, but then I suggested having a dot for anyone the user had in mind. Later that night, as I pored over a ponderous Charms reference book and glanced up to see the other three doing the same, I mentally slapped myself for suggesting that idea. The charm was beyond our level, by far.

 

And then–then I remember that wondrous day that we completed perfecting the piece of parchment.

__

_“Are…are we done?”� Peter asked nervously._

__

_We all just sat there, staring at the parchment on the table. Were we really? Had we created_ the _map for the ultimate troublemaker?_

__

_“Well, come on! Try it out!”� I exclaimed, shoving the parchment into his hands. I couldn’t hide the excitement in my voice, and part of me couldn’t believe how eager I was to see this thing actually work. We gathered around expectantly, peering over Sirius’s shoulder._

__

_“Go on!”� James prodded._

__

_He nodded. “I solemnly swear I am up to no good,”� Sirius whispered, his voice loaded with anticipation._

__

_All our eyes were fixed on the parchment we had labored over for so long. Suddenly, a flourish appeared on the page, flowering into twisted script that welcomed the user:_

__

Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers are proud to present _The Marauder’s Map._

__

_The welcoming calligraphy wove into a series of lines. Several dots came into view, each with its appropriate label. I looked at the parchment in half-disbelief. I couldn’t believe it. We had done it. We had created the Marauder’s Map._

__

_“It works! It works! It WORKS!”� James cried jubilantly. He grabbed Peter, the nearest one, and did a ridiculously choreographed victory dance. Peter wore an expression of absolutely shock as he was yanked around in the jig, and Sirius and I laughed appreciatively. Our laughter rose as Peter clumsily stumbled over his robes and over James’ feet, toppling the odd pair over._

 

I sit there in my office, head in my hands, eyes shut tight.

 

I can hear our laughter, bouncing off the poster-covered walls of the boys’ dormitory. I can see Sirius rolling on the floor and clutching his sides, Peter’s small eyes squinted even more in his squeaky laughter, James’ glasses falling off of his face as his boisterous laugh rang clearly. And I am there, laughing with them, laughing at the silly entanglement of James and Peter on the floor, laughing at the ridiculous success of our Marauder’s Map, laughing, simply for the joy of laughing with my three closest friends, my brothers…

 

A noise outside my door yanks me from my reverie. The blurry parchment in front of me clears up as my eyes refocus. A small dot labeled “Snape”� is coming my way on the map.

 

Probably wants to know what this old “parchment from Zonko’s”� is all about.

 

I smile wearily and tap the old, rolled parchment once again.

 

“Mischief managed.”�

 

**_Finis_ **

 

**A/N:** I actually really enjoyed writing this. Remus is such a unique and fun perspective to write from, and I love to imagine the four best friends just hanging out. Thanks for reading and review as you wish!

 

.mische.


End file.
